Lilliputians, Brobdingnagians, Laputans, Yahoos, and Houyhnhnms
While reading the introductory "A Letter from Capt. Gulliver, to His Cousin Sympson," One immediately stumbles upon Swift's odd names for the different races in his novel. He had to develop new words for the people and places on Gulliver's fictional journey (in a literal sense), but why contrive such obscure and difficult-to-say names?
Gulliver is very agitated in this letter, accusing the publisher of omitting from and adding to his work beyond what he wanted. He also defends himself against the "Sea-Yahoos," claiming their attack against his improper "Sea-Language" is unjust since language is inconstant. He states that neither him nor a Yahoo he was talking to could comprehend each's ideas since language changes with the people's desire to make it "new-fangled" (p. 30). Gulliver's description of miscomprehension reminds me of Hobbes' description of absurdity: the act of conversing with conflicting definitions of words. Based off of this and Gulliver's anger towards being misinterpreted, did Swift choose such absurd words as "Houyhnhnms" to avoid absurdity? Unless I'm missing some allusions, they don't seem to resemble any word in the English language. Or did Swift use them mainly for a laugh?
The name "Houyhnhnms" has always been a favorite of mine. I kind of wish that all animals had names that sound like something they might say.
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